


Finders Keepers

by inthemarketplace



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Libraries
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:15:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25132228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inthemarketplace/pseuds/inthemarketplace
Summary: Thrilled at discovering a book that fits the niche of her research interests perfectly is tucked away in an unfamiliar library, Hermione drags Ginny along for what should be a cut and dry errand. But nothing’s ever that simple, is it?
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	Finders Keepers

**Author's Note:**

> god i miss going to the library

“It’s taunting me.”

The empty space glared at her like an unanswered question. It was infuriating. 

“What?” 

“Look, it’s right there.”

“Hermione,” Ginny said slowly, “there isn’t anything there.”

“Exactly!”

“C’mon,” Ginny groaned, “just tell me what you’re talking about.”

Finding the library had been enough of a challenge, and finding a book within was proving surprisingly difficult. With thirteen storeys and an incredibly involved card catalogue, not to mention the way the ancient stacks wound around each other like a maze, even Hermione had difficulty navigating the labyrinth that was the Tower of Edinburgh Wizarding Library. 

“Ginny,” she said trying to temper her excitement with practiced patience, “you know my project on pre-Norman wizarding laws in Britain regarding creature welfare?”

“I have heard of it,” Ginny remarked with a smirk. Which was fair enough; Hermione had been ranting about it for over a month.

Right well I’ve been looking through the indexes at the Ministry’s library to see if I could find any more books on the subject, and that’s what led me here; the Tower’s collection of seventh to tenth century records is one of the best available, and there’s so many essays here that I want to read but this one,” she said pointing to the empty space, “is exactly what I’ve been looking for. It’s just absolutely precisely perfect. The missing link in my research.”

“Except that’s a nothing, not a book.”

“Well it should be a book. Look here,” Hermione signalled her over, displaying the Library’s pristinely kept magical catalogue with a wave of her wand. 

“See, this,” she pointed at a spark of light, “is late nineteenth century magical historian Dorian Robertson’s _Sacred Service: Writings on Elvish Rights, Customs and Crafts from 710 to 792_.”

“That’s a mouthful.”

“Right, well it’s also missing.”

“Which means that we should go to the café on the second floor and get pastries? I fully agree.”

“Which means,” Hermione said with a look, “that the book needs to be found. It’s not checked out. See? Look at the catalogue. It’s showing that the book is still in the library. But it’s not here, at its call number. So it has to be somewhere else.”

“Somewhere else in a thirteen-floor tower,” Ginny said, reluctant to table the issue of pastries.

“Exactly.”

“Fine,” Ginny groaned. “We’ll find your mouldy old book. But then we are getting multiple pastries, and it will be your treat.”

“Naturally.”

“Alright then, so how do we find this thing?”

Hermione smiled victoriously. Between the two of them, they were bound to find the book and once they did, she’d be another step closer to bringing the project to publication. 

~•~•~

“Merlin, this has to be the four hundredth floor we’ve searched,” said Ginny, checking through the reshelf cart for the fifth floor’s reference room.

“It’s only the fifth!” Hermione said back. They’d started on the eleventh, where the Robertson book was meant to be, and worked their way down, skipping any wings and rooms whose topics were so unrelated as to render them more than unlikely places to find the missing volume. Despite the narrowing down it was still an enormous amount of space to cover, but Hermione rather liked such a broad introduction to the Tower Library.

“Who do you think has it?” Ginny asked. “Like, a professor maybe? A nerd? A hot nerd?”

“Oh stop, I’m sure it’s nothing so dramatic as all that,” she said, sorting through a pile of books left on a reading desk. Really, the reshelf carts weren’t so hard to find. The laziness of some people was truly astounding.

“Well whoever is reading it has got to be like, your soulmate, right?”

Hermione rolled her eyes but blushed a little. It had been a very long time since she’d been on a date with anyone possessing the intellectual capacity to get through anything more tedious than the prophet let alone peruse century old collections of eighth century records and law codes. And the possibility that the missing book might be connected to a person, any person really, who had even a passing interest in the rights of house elves would be something like a breath of fresh air.

“I mean, it would be nice to find someone interested in the same things,” she said mildly, trying not too hard to get her hopes up. After all, the book was probably just misplaced.

“Yeah,” said Ginny with a grin, “especially if it’s a hot nerd.” Hermione, laughing, shook her head.

“Come on, it probably just got reshelved incorrectly. You know, like last time at the Ministry Library? Or, I don’t know, every single time this happened at Hogwarts?”

“Shit, Hermione, you’ve got to start believing in love,” Ginny said a little too loudly, her words clashing against the walls of the ancient library.

“Hush,” Hermione laughed quietly as she could. “Really, Gin, you can’t shout like that.”

“Fine,” said Ginny in a mock whisper, “but this really is the dullest scavenger hunt ever. You won’t even let me have hypothetical hot nerds.”

“You can have as many hot nerds as you want, Gin. I just want to find my book.”

Ginny rolled her eyes and, finishing the stack of books she’d been searching, gave a dramatic sigh. 

“Nothing here. Not an elf-book in sight.”

“Same. I think it’s safe to consider this floor done,” Hermione said. She checked the magical catalogue again with the library’s spell. “It still says it’s in the library,” she said shaking her head. 

“Maybe we should ask at circulation, I know you like to find things yourself, but—” 

“No, no you’re right. One more floor and then I’ll leave my fate in the hands of the librarians. Ok, let’s check the philosophy section and then the reading room on the fourth floor. The third floor is all potions so this is the last floor before we get to the second—”

“And pastries!” Ginny exclaimed.

“Yes, Gin, and pastries. Help me search the fourth floor and I’ll buy you all the pastries you can bear, yeah?”

“Deal,” Ginny said with a sly grin, and Hermione vaguely wondered just how many sweets Ginny was going to manage to snag.

The philosophy section and its corresponding reshelving cart was unsurprisingly a bust. They made their way next to the reading room, a spacious hall with high ceilings and over a dozen glazed oak tables standing at attention in the centre of the room, all adorned with uniform reading lamps. There were even more tables tucked between the shelves and pillars, obscured from the sight of the general patrons by gleaming stacks and partitions.

They were turning around one of these when Ginny stopped abruptly, Hermione only aware of the fact after colliding with her back. 

“Oh boy.”

Ginny sounded more amused than anything and curious, Hermione peeked over her shoulder only to be met with an unanticipated sight. It was impossible. Unbelievable. Very much not fair. For sitting at the table under the light of the green glass lamp, holding the Robertson book on 8th century elvish rights and customs, and looking much too much at home was none other than— 

“Malfoy?”

“Granger?”

They stared at each other in a startled silence that was broken by Ginny’s library-inappropriate guffawing laugh.

**Author's Note:**

> visit me on tumblr [@ivi312](https://ivi312.tumblr.com/) <3  
> (i'm very approachable)
> 
> yes this is based on something that happened to me on a research trip  
> no it did not end in a meet cute  
> yes i did find the book i was looking for (and it was worth it!)


End file.
